IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/uct/uconnp/2008-23.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Minimizing the Price of Tranquility: How to Discourage Scotland's Secession from the United Kingdom

Author

Listed:
  • Paul Hallwood

    (University of Connecticut)

Abstract

What some view as overly-generous funding of the Scottish parliament results from Scotland.s credible threat to secede from the United Kingdom. Scotland is shown to benefit from a second mover advantage in a non-cooperative sequential game over the allocation of public funds. Various reform proposals are criticized for not recognizing that reform of Scottish government finances must be consistent with Scotland.s credible threat. Fiscal autonomy -- in which the Scottish parliament finances a much greater proportion of its spending from Scottish-sourced taxes, is demonstrated to be a viable reform within the existing political context and, in some circumstances, could remove Scotland.s second mover advantage. We also use a cooperative bargaining game model to demonstrate that an Australian style grants commission would not be a viable reform in the British context.

Suggested Citation

  • Paul Hallwood, 2008. "Minimizing the Price of Tranquility: How to Discourage Scotland's Secession from the United Kingdom," Working papers 2008-23, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics.
  • Handle: RePEc:uct:uconnp:2008-23
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://media.economics.uconn.edu/working/2008-23.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ronald MacDonald & Paul Hallwood, 2004. "The Economic Case for Fiscal Federalism in Scotland," Working papers 2004-42, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics.
    2. P Hallwood & R.MacDonald, "undated". "A Restatement of the Case for Fiscal Autonomy (or: The Barnett Formula - a formula for Rake's Progress)," Working Papers 2006_14, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    3. Paul Hallwood, 2007. "From Tranquility to Secession and Other Historical Sequences: A Theoretical Exposition," Working papers 2007-35, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Paul Hallwood & Ronald MacDonald, 2008. "A Review of the Empirical Evidence on the Effects of Fiscal Decentralization on Economic Efficiency: With Comments on Tax Devolution to Scotland," Working papers 2008-46, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics.
    2. David Heald & Alasdair Mcleod, 2005. "Embeddedness of UK devolution finance within the public expenditure system," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(4), pages 495-518.
    3. Chen, Xiaoshan & Kirsanova, Tatiana & Leith, Campbell, 2014. "An Empirical Assessment of Optimal Monetary Policy Delegation in the Euro Area," SIRE Discussion Papers 2015-04, Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE).
    4. Alex Christie & Kim Swales, 2006. "The Efficiency of Decentralised and Devolved Government: A Framework," ERSA conference papers ersa06p533, European Regional Science Association.
    5. Tamayo, Adrian, 2017. "Assignment of powers and number of states in Federal Philippines Discussion paper on federalizing Philippines," MPRA Paper 79545, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. P Hallwood & R.MacDonald, "undated". "A Restatement of the Case for Fiscal Autonomy (or: The Barnett Formula - a formula for Rake's Progress)," Working Papers 2006_14, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    7. Lecca, Patrizio & McGregor, Peter G. & Swales, J. Kim & Yin, Ya Ping, 2010. "Inverted Haavelmo Effects in a General Equilibrium Analysis of the Impact of Implementing the Scottish Variable Rate of Income Tax," SIRE Discussion Papers 2010-47, Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE).
    8. Hallwood, Paul & MacDonald, Ronald, 2014. "Picking the Right Budget Constraint for Scotland," 2007 Annual Meeting, July 29-August 1, 2007, Portland, Oregon TN 2015-27, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    9. Paul Hallwood & Ronald MacDonald, 2014. "Picking The Right Budget Constraint For Scotland," Working Papers 2014_18, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    10. Sharma, Chanchal Kumar, 2010. "Beyond Gaps and Imbalances: Re-Structuring the Debate on Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations," MPRA Paper 32145, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Sharma, Chanchal Kumar, 2007. "Rescuing the concept of vertical fiscal imbalance," MPRA Paper 39343, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2010.
    12. James Gallagher & Daniel Hinze, "undated". "Financing Options for Devolved Government in the UK," Working Papers 2005_24, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Barnett formula; cooperative game; fiscal autonomy; fiscal federalism; grants commission; non-cooperative game; public finance; regional finance; Scottish executive; Scottish parliament; secession; vertical balance; United Kingdom; vertical imbalance.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H77 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Intergovernmental Relations; Federalism

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:uct:uconnp:2008-23. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Mark McConnel (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deuctus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.